


The World Falls Away - by creepy_crawly

by youngavengersbigbang



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 19:27:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1009153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngavengersbigbang/pseuds/youngavengersbigbang
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which it is 1967, Vietnam is a thing, and so is beating the draft. </p><p>(Also Eli’s running the SDS and Cassie and Kate are feminists-at-arms and Nate may or may not have just become Tommy the Traveler OOPS.) </p><p>Written for Kirsah’s playlist (found here: http://youngavengersbb.livejournal.com/5082.html) in the Young Avengers Reverse Big Bang 2013.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The World Falls Away - by creepy_crawly

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Khirsah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khirsah/gifts).



From the moment he first lays eyes on him, Teddy knows that B’s not the kind of guy he usually hangs out with. Or, you know, _ever_ hangs out with.

Not that there’s anything wrong with B. Well, for a given value of “nothing wrong with,” Teddy amends mentally; there’s a reason that B does what he does, and something has definitely kept him safe from the draft. So, theoretically, there could be a lot of things wrong with B. Both physically _and_ mentally.

What B is, though, is a genius.

He’s halfway through his degree, and, unlike most boys their age, not too concerned about graduation. After all, common knowledge has it that he’s safe from the draft, courtesy of a heart condition. Too, he’s probably too stoned to be worried.

Because B’s genius isn’t just in his journalism classes. No, B’s genius truly shines in the fact that he’s running a drug _empire_ out of his dorm room.

Acid, marijuana, coke, h, and, if you are feeling particularly studious, even some amps—all these things are available in one scrawny boy’s dorm room.  So long as you can meet his price.

But Teddy’s not worried about meeting his price. Teddy’s there for a different reason.

\---

“I’m not building bombs,” B says, almost as soon as Teddy finishes his explanation.

“Wouldn’t ask you to,” Teddy answers. “Bombs aren’t our style, here.”

B looks him up and down and up again. “But asking the local druggie is?”

Teddy grins. He’s aware that the expression makes him look something like a shark scenting blood in the water, but that’s kind of an apt metaphor at this point. Because B doesn’t look angry or upset. No, he looks intrigued, and intrigued is something Teddy can work with.

“Well,” Teddy starts, “when the local druggie has a 4.0 gpa and is graduating with honors despite his—extracurriculars—I think he’s got something to offer the movement. And it’s not like you’re known for supporting the war.”

B snorts. He looks around his room, as if cataloguing the camera equipment and the ragged books and the glass lab equipment haphazardly propped against the one wall. He looks up at Teddy, meeting his eyes square on.

“So?” Teddy asks.

B shakes his head. “You might as well call me Billy,” he answers, and stands up, already reaching to shake Teddy’s hand.

They make contact and, in that instant, Teddy could swear the world falls away.

\---

Eli likes Billy, even though he says he’s “concerned” about the other man’s patiently pacifistic approach. He says that Billy’s been softened by not “living under the axe-head of unfair death,” but that doesn’t stop him from welcoming the young man to the group.

Teddy knows that Eli likes Billy, for all his belly-aching, because Eli didn’t really like _him_ to start with, and so he knows how Eli acts when he’s trying not to form normal human connections. And besides that, Eli actually does hate Nate, but honestly, Nate kinda gives them all the heebie-jeebies, except for Cassie, and Cassie’s, uh. Well.

“Cassie’s going to get herself killed, if she’s lucky,” Billy growls one day, rifling through the notes from earlier meetings. He’s trying to catch up.

“If she’s lucky?” Eli asks, his words fair dripping with ice.

“If she’s lucky, yes,” Billy says. He doesn’t look up from the notes, but his movements become sharp, abrupt, cutting. “Because if she’s unlucky, she’s going to get the rest of us killed right along with her.”

Teddy beams, the resounding of Billy referring to them as an “us” drowning out the bickering between the other two.

\---

“This is Kate,” Billy says, his hand resting in the small of the young woman’s back.

Teddy feels strangely apathetic. Well, he would feel strangely apathetic, if apathetic really meant “like ripping someone’s head off and forcing it up a bodily cavity of one’s own choosing.” So what he’s feeling probably isn’t apathy, but a jealousy he’d rather not confront. Whatever.

Kate dimples—actually dimples—at them. She waves an elegant hand. “Hi, Kate Bishop.”

Nate’s eyes narrow. “Are you spying on us?” he asks Billy. “You do know what she is, correct?”

“ _She_ ,” Billy says, suddenly more dangerous than ever before, suddenly the man who owned half of campus via drug debts, “is a supporter of your cause, _Nathaniel_.”

“This rich bitch is a senator’s kid!”

Cassie smacks Nate, _hard_. “Don’t you go throwing that kind of language around,” she snaps. “There are plenty of ways to express hatred for her without relying on stereotypical dehumanisations of gender!”

Kate’s eyes are pretty narrow, too. “Just because my father’s not willing to look any further than his own pocket book doesn’t mean I am, too,” she says, and her voice isn’t cool so much as absolute-zero-Kelvin cold. “I want to end suffering, just like you.”

“What do you know about suffering?” Eli demands. His dark face is twisted into a sharp scowl.

Kate scowls back, stalking forward from the protection of Billy’s space. “I know that suffering isn’t just limited to one person, place, or idea,” she says. “I know that my suffering is different from yours but that we’ve both suffered, so why don’t you shut up and let me help you?”

Teddy tries to steady things up. Peacemaker is a role he’s always been good at, which makes it all the more ironic that, of the group of them, he’s the only one with a still-valid draft card. “What, uh, what kind of help are you suggesting?”

Kate turns to him, plastering a false smile across her too-pretty face. “How does being bankrolled by Senator Bishop’s trustfund daughter sound?”

\---

They start calling themselves the Young Avengers, because Billy thinks it’s all-too wonderfully tongue-in-cheek and Teddy can’t deny him anything. Besides, Kate’s willing to go along with ninety percent of what Billy suggests, as long as she agrees with it, and Eli likes the fact that it might smear the Avengers a little. He still hasn’t forgiven the elite group of equal rights campaigners for sweeping the inherent racism of the draft under the rug, and he can never forgive the one they call Captain America, because Captain America’s the reason his grandfather’s trapped in the cell of his own mind.

Nate’s too busy with other branches of the SDS, too attuned to the future for the here and now.

So they become the Young Avengers.

\---

Teddy’s never had an urge to do drugs before, but he can’t deny that there’s something magical about the way Billy’s able to make people go loose, to open them up to the world, to let them drop out, even just for a while. Watching him carefully measure out acid onto star-printed blotters, Teddy thinks he can see why they call Billy the Wiccan.

There’s a natural sort of magic in everything he does.

\---

When they talk plans in public places, or when they take notes, or when they call each other, they all call Nate ‘Vision,’ because he might not always be _visionary_ —he and Eli get into enough fights—but there’s no denying that the man’s got a plan and he’s got a goal and he’s working towards the future.

\---

They start calling Cassie ‘Stature’ after she manages to get legislation about the equal rights and treatment of women read and then _passed_ at the National Conference.

\---

Kate cheerfully steals the name of Hawkeye from the last Hawkeye, the genius at SUNY-Albany who not only scoped out the incoming SDS but pointed out the narcs in the mix. It’s not like he’s around to begrudge her and her sharp eyes the name; he got blown up in the blast he was trying to prevent. But Kate likes the idea of keeping out the riff-raff and of stopping the violence, especially if it’s the violence promoted by the undercover bastards that people like her dad keep sending into schools. Plus, she’s got great aim when it comes to public opinion and spending, so, you know, Hawkeye it is.

\---

Eli is Patriot, and also a patriot.

That’s all there is to it.

\---

Billy’s the one who coins Teddy’s nickname. He starts calling him Hulkling, because he says that the blond stands in his shadow like a hulking menace whenever they’re out together, especially when it’s on Billy’s kind of business. (Apparently, drug-running in Geneva also includes running draft dodgers and exceptions. Who knew?)

And Teddy’s okay with letting Billy call him whatever he wants, because Billy is soft and wonderful and powerful in an incredibly dorky sort of way. Sometimes Teddy wonders how in hell Billy managed to get involved with drugs and then make it his own little empire here at Hobart. But then Billy will smile at him and crack some stupid joke about the comic they read together last night and it will hit him like a brick to the face.

Billy does what he wants because the universe is far too charmed to say no.

\---

Teddy takes his first hit of acid right off Billy’s tongue.

He’s not sure if it’s the drug or Billy that makes the world fall away.

\---

The sunlight pours in through the window like freedom and summertime, and for a long moment, Teddy can just luxuriate in the buttery yellow sheets that adorn Billy’s bed and pretend that he doesn’t have to worry about anything. For the moment, the world has stopped turning, there is no war in Vietnam, there is no draft, and there is no draft card hiding behind his student id in his wallet. There is no SDS, no homework, no graduation date, nothing but Billy, sprawled out like a starfish, sheet loosely draped across the hollow of his back, leaving the rest of him bare as love.

Teddy smiles to himself, tracing the dark lines of the bruises his hands left last night—or possibly early this morning—where they sit on Billy’s thin hips. At first, he’d been horrified to think that he was hurting the other man, but Billy’s taught him better.

 _My body, my choice,_ Billy echoes in his mind, _which means as much about me liking rough sex as Cassie and Kate getting birth control pills._

“Don’t stare at my ass,” Billy says, though it’s hard to tell what he’s saying, what with how his face is buried in the pillow still.

Obedient, Teddy turns to look at the tangled rat’s nest of dark curls.

Billy grins, and slowly reveals that grin by rolling over slowly, so that he’s half-draped across Teddy’s lap, now smiling up at the blond.

“I should probably have been more clear,” he croaks, voice still morning-blowjob-rough.

Teddy slants an eyebrow at him.

“Don’t stare at my ass _unless you plan to do something_.”

\---

The little white envelope ruins everything.

\---

“I can get you a note from my dad,” Billy pleads, and his voice is thick with mucus and fear. “You—a heart problem. Recently diagnosed. Teddy, _please_.”

Teddy shakes his head, though how he knows that’s what he’s shaking when the rest of him is trembling, he’s not sure. “No, no,” his voice says, from miles away. “I…when I joined up with Nate and Eli…I promised.”

Billy doesn’t say anything, but something that sounds like a sob tears itself out of his throat.

Teddy thinks this should upset him.

\---

Billy’s eyes are still red-rimmed and hollow, but he lets Cassie in when she pounds on the door.

“I’m not doing this anymore,” he starts to say.

But she cuts him off. “I don’t care what you are or are not doing right now,” she tells him, frantic and furious. “I need your help. There’s something you need to know.”

\---

“This would make a pretty strong Molotov,” Billy tells the two women, looking through the sheets Cassie gave him. He recognizes the ideas behind them, has seen them frequently enough while paging through his own cookbook. The difference being that just because he knows how to use them doesn’t mean he will. “Where did you get this?”

“I found it in Nate’s desk, in the office,” Kate says.

Billy’s eyes cut, unwilling, to Cassie.

“I told her to look,” says the blonde. For all that there are fat tears dripping down her round cheeks, her chin is firm and her voice doesn’t tremble the way her lips do. “I—Nate’s been acting weird, ever since his last meeting with the NO.”

“There’s been another meeting with the NO?”

Kate shakes her head. “No, unless you mean the national office of the CIA.” She frowns, and gently tugs Cassie against her body. “I…I may have seen my father’s notes on his desk. He’s part of the HUAC.”

Billy’s eyes go a little wider. “Jesus, Kate,” he breathes. “You’re not playing the risk or anything, are you.”

She smiles bitterly. “Yeah, well. We’ve all got our crosses to bear; mine just happens to wear suits that cost more than a house.”

Billy huffs out a sigh. “So…Nate’s a…”

“Narc, yes,” Cassie snaps. She jolts upright, her long legs all Billy sees for a long moment. She paces around the small space in heavy stomps, her boots thunking against the hardwood flooring, jeans shushing rebelliously with her motion. “I can’t believe I…I mean…oh, that rat bastard!”

Kate looks across at Billy; she’s clearly been hearing this rant for a while. “What can we do?” she asks.

Billy flips through the notes. “I’m guessing the police aren’t an option.”

Cassie snorts. “Considering they apparently want to blow up the ROTC office, no. Or did you forget who’s been selling acid to half of campus?”

“More than half,” Billy says, only half-paying attention, “because you know the chem labs need it, too.” His eyes narrow as he catches something scrawled on the side of one page.

“What is it?” Kate asks.

“A way out,” Billy says. Then, guilty, he adds, “I hope.”

\---

They leave Cassie on look out for Nate or Tommy, the man he’s inviting in to “help the cause.” Eli’s her back-up, in case she needs it. He’s also on hand to prevent any explosive type things from happening.

Because Kate and Billy have their own things to take care of. Nate’s not stupid—not a fool, damn him!—and once he figured out that Cassie knew—and that she didn’t agree—he set to work. And now the police from three different counties are coming racing towards Hobart, and towards William Smith, and Billy _won’t_ let this happen.

He and Kate race up and down the halls, pounding on doors and yelling that Nate the New Kid is a narc, that the cops are coming, dump your stash, dump your stash.

As they run, the halls flood, an ant mound disturbed by the overbearing boot of heavy governmental regulation. Kate rounds up those she knows are good for the fight, sends them down to Cassie and Eli, tells them to look for Nate and his accomplice, a white-blond man built like a whip and with an attitude just as sharp. Billy helps with dumping of stashes and the hiding of paraphernalia and getting the word out, because there is no volunteer army if no one knows they need to volunteer.

\---

It’s a riot, it’s an outright riot, and it’s the rightest Billy’s felt in weeks.

Cassie and Eli and all their crew have barricaded the dorm, and the police seem reluctant to break past the barriers of old, rundown cars. It may have something to do with the impeccable aim Kate’s got, flinging potted plants (and, in one beautiful instance, a pot plant) down at the officers. The others are taking up on her ideas, too, and it’s a fair hail of student detritus if the officers get too close.

And around it all, there’s the steady thrum of students yelling out against the police, against the government, against narcs and spies and war and everything, everything that has ruined it all.

\---

The police leave, and they bring Tommy with them, locked in handcuffs, trapped in the back of a cruiser.

They take Nate, too, but he’s sitting in a front seat, talking to the other officers. He doesn’t look happy.

That’s okay, though.

Because Cassie looks like she’ll never be happy again.

\---

Life goes back to normal. Kate and Cassie come for lunch sometimes. Eli starts a new organization—Students for Reformed Government. Billy finishes his thesis paper. He runs out of blotters, but doesn’t buy more.

Letters come, sometimes, from Teddy.

Until they don’t.

\---

He knocks on the door at eight in the morning.

Billy answers, only half-dressed for work. He’s wearing slacks and an undershirt, but his button-up and tie are still hanging from his shoulders and he hasn’t brushed his hair. He looks at the uniformed man standing at his door. “Can I help you?”

“Hello,” the man says. “I am Sergeant Thomas Callahan, with the United States Army. Are you Mr William Kaplan?”

“I am,” Billy says. His fingers, he notes, are numb and buzzing where he clutches the door frame. He doesn’t remember doing that. It’s odd.

The man looks at him. “May I come inside?” he asks. “You might want to find a seat.”

Billy steps aside, and one too-loose arm gestures the man inside. He knows why he’s here, has known since he heard the doorbell, has known since he waved goodbye to Teddy as he got on the bus, has known since that little white envelope arrived.

Has known since the first time he saw Teddy’s draft card, sitting there, innocuous, in his wallet.

“I have an important message from the Secretary of Army,” the man says, and it seems to be coming from a million miles away, like he’s speaking from across several rooms, through cotton wool.

Billy drifts on a cushion of air, his feet sinking through the floor, the world spinning a little out of tune with his own rotation.

“The Secretary has asked me to express his deep regret,” the man continues.

The world falls away.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tommy the Traveler was a CIA narc who really did start a riot at Hobart-William Smith Colleges, which is the stuff of legends. In this piece, I’ve renamed Tommy (because YA Tommy had other things to be doing) and telescoped the drug riots and the attempted bombing of the ROTC office into one event. I’ve kept as true to the story of the riot itself as possible, if just because I know people involved (my mom was a hippy. So were her friends. I come by it honest) and it’s kind of a classic late 60’s story in my house.


End file.
